About Dave Pflieger

Before his time at WBG, Dave was CEO of Island Air and previously the President and CEO of Silver Airways. Before this, Pflieger was the CEO & Managing Director of Air Pacific (later Fiji Airways). Before joining Air Pacific, Pflieger was a Founding Officer and Senior Vice President at Virgin America from 2004 to 2010.

Headquarters LEEDs certified, to San Francisco beach clean-ups, company-wide recycling, identifying carbon offset projects, and even reducing the carbon footprint of the airline’s entire aircraft fleet through fuel burn / CO2 emissions conservation efforts. In short, Dave and his fellow Green Team teammates left no stone unturned in their efforts to ensure Virgin America, its employees, and customers did everything and anything possible to protect the environment and help reduce the airline’s CO2 footprint and their collective impact on the environment. The Virgin America Green Team was also instrumental in helping the Virgin Group come up with new ideas on how Virgin branded airlines in the UK and Australia could implement similar initiatives. During the Green Team’s quarterly meetings, Dave Pflieger and the other members developed recommendations for the Company on projects that could improve HQ energy efficiency, help the local community, and foster an employee culture focused on sustainability.

Specific accomplishments that Dave Pflieger’s Green Team helped execute included being the first airline in the United States to measure, track, report and publish all company- wide green house gas emissions, partnering with the Carbon Fund to allow and encourage passengers to purchase carbon offsets when traveling, buying HQ furniture, lighting, IT servers, and office supplies that were more energy efficient or recyclable. Dave Pflieger and his colleagues also started programs that encouraged and rewarded employees who used public transportation, telecommuting, electronic publications, battery powered ground power units, and independent recycling at airports that didn’t provide recycling services.Virgin America employees later came together to take part in Spare the Air’s, “Great Race for Clean Air”, which is an initiative where Bay Area companies encourage their employees to reduce CO2 emissions by reducing their driving through commuting by walking, biking, or carpooling. In 2011, 200 employees from Virgin America helped prevent 10,452lbs of CO2.

Dave Pflieger helped Virgin America become the first airline in the U.S. that had a comprehensive “Green” program that not only baked “sustainability” into the Company’s employee culture, it also led employees to later take part in efforts that help their local communities and the environment – efforts which today include the Silicon Valley Leadership Group Turkey Trot and American Heart Association’s Heart Walk. Pflieger and his Green Team also partnered with the renowned non-profit sustainability NGO, CERES to become the first U.S. airline focused on business/NGO sustainability coalitions.